Manute Bol, the tallest man on the basketball cards my friends and I bought and traded in the early 90s, died yesterday at 47.

Most of us were not sports fans, and definitely not basketball fans, so I can’t recall quite what inspired us to buy the trading cards in the first place, but our imaginations were fired by the stats on his card, without ever watching him play.

His name was an exotic combination of sounds, and, after coming to our attention because of his amazing height, he remained in our group consciousness due to regular repetition.